


Wolves and Gulls

by VelourFanClub (toomanysorrows)



Category: Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/F, Genderbending, Moving In Together, i think it counts at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22389787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toomanysorrows/pseuds/VelourFanClub
Summary: Skadi demands a spouse from the gods in recompense for the murder of her father. Due to their trickery, she does not marry the god Balder as she intended but the goddess Njord. Now the giantess from the mountains and the goddess from the sea need to make this marriage work.
Relationships: Njörðr | Njord/Skaði | Skadi (Norse Religion & Lore)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Wolves and Gulls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phrenotobe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe/gifts).



> This was a gift fic for my friend Max as thanks for helping me out during nagamas. The prompt was to do a wlw retelling of a myth or historical moment. Since I always found it sad how Njord and Skadi's marriage didn't work out in the "canon", I figured I'd use it as a basis to both make it gay and have it end better ^^
> 
> Big note: this is my own take on norse mythology. It might very well not fit with people's own interpretations of it, in which case, well, so be it.

Skadi was a sight to behold as she stormed into Asgard. Of course, with her tall stature and stern features she had always had a striking appearance. But now that she was armed and armoured, with her chestnut hair dishevelled from rushing through the wintry landscape and with eyes burning with anger even Thor couldn’t help but feel a small tremble of fear.

She had every right to be angry of course. They had killed Thiazzi! Her own father! Granted, he had kidnapped Idunn and tried to steal the apples of immortality. But when Odin stole the mead of poetry from Suttung and left the giant’s daughter broken-hearted he’d acted no less dishonourably. And Loki had more such schemes to his name than anyone cared to remember. Yet they were both still alive and well, feasting in their hall, while her father was food for the crows. It was only right that she seek compensation. 

At first she wanted to demand revenge. A head for a head, a life for a life. But Odin (damn his soul and the poetry-mead he’d drank) had managed to convince her to accept a wergild instead. But she she was not planning on letting them off cheap. She would take the most loved of the Aesir for her own, so that they would know the feeling of loss she felt when they killed her father.

“I demand three things as compensation. First, that you place my father’s eyes in the sky as stars, so he can always watch over me. Second, that you make me laugh to forget my grief. Third, that you give me a spouse from among your number to replace the company you took from me. This is the only wergild I will accept.”

There was commotion among the gods. The first two demands were easy to acquiesce to. But no one asked for a spouse from them without either desiring Freya or Balder. Freya was about as staunch a bachelor as one could find and would fight tooth and nail to avoid any marriage. And no one wished to see Balder’s light disappear from Asgard. The giantess could not be allowed to freely choose her spouse. 

Skadi scoffed as they relayed their conditions to her. She could choose a spouse among the unmarried gods, but she would only be allowed to see their feet. It was a cunning trick, but not cunning enough to thwart her. It would be easy to distinguish the feet of someone as beautiful as Balder. 

It didn’t take her long to choose from among the feet that peeked out from under the curtain. One set was the cleanest and most beautiful of all. They could not be anyone’s feet but Balder’s. She picked them without hesitation. 

The curtain was drawn back. It was not Balder.

As relieved gods crowded around Balder and Freya breathed a sigh of relief, Skadi was left to meet her bride. She had the brown, tanned skin of a sailor, with long green hair like seaweed and dark freckles dotting her face. Her eyes were a deep grey, like the depths of the ocean. 

Skadi cursed her rashness. If she had only stopped to think for a moment before choosing, she would have realised that the goddess of the sea would have the cleanest feet.  
But as her now-fiancée gave her a tentative smile and a nod, Skadi thought this outcome wasn’t too bad. Njord’s looks might not have matched Balder’s of Freya’s, but she was beautiful in her own way. The rich fabrics of her dress and the many gold ornaments she wore indicated wealth. And there was something about the way Njord smiled that she couldn’t help but like.

She could live with this.

\----- 

The wedding had been a magnificent affair, as befitted a union of god and giant. Meat and pastries had been present in abundance and mead and wine even more so. By the end of the night, the gods had fulfilled all her demands: she had laughed herself silly at the sight of Loki being dragged by his testicles by a billy-goat and Thor had thrown her father’s eyes up in the heavens where they’d become two shining stars. 

It was those stars she was looking at right now, from the window in the room the Aesir had leant her and Njord for their wedding night. She couldn’t help a small tear escaping her. Thiazzi wasn’t gone entirely. Even if it wasn’t like before, he was still there. And that was maybe not enough, but it was something. 

She felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Skadi? We should go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

She turned back to Njord, who was standing there with a slightly concerned look on her face. Skadi quickly wiped the tear away and affected a confident grin.

“Oh? Not eager to celebrate our marriage then?”

She winked flirtatiously. Njord didn’t smile back bashfully as Skadi had half-expected. Instead she matched her with a smirk.

“Oh I’m plenty eager. I just thought you might’ve been too tired to handle me tonight.”

Skadi laughed. Good, she liked a challenge.

That night, Skadi smiled as she held the sleeping Njord in her arms. She wasn’t in love with the goddess. Very few brides could say they were in love with their spouse on their wedding night, really. But she could feel herself getting there. 

\----

Skadi sat up, blinking as her eyes got used to the darkness. For a moment she wasn’t sure what had woken her up, until she noticed the empty bed beside her and saw movement at the corner of the room. 

“Njord?”

The other woman jumped slightly, turning around. She sounded apologetic.

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you up?”

“It’s fine.” Skadi stifled a yawn, shaking her head. “Why are you up?”

As if in answer, a chorus of loud howls sounded from outside. Njord cursed under her breath before sitting down on the bed. She sounded so very tired as she spoke. 

“Just the same thing as last time. And the time before that. And before that.” 

Skadi grimaced, reaching out to hug the goddess in the hope of providing some comfort, just like all the previous times. This had become something of a nightly ritual, unfortunately.

Both she and Njord possessed their own halls and domains. Skadi had her father’s hall Thrymheim in the mountains and Njord had her hall Noatun by the coast. Neither of them could afford to abandon one of them, so after the wedding they had agreed to rotate between the two. Nine nights in Thrymheim, nine nights in Noatun. Unfortunately it had become clear that Thrymheim didn’t suit Njord at all. 

Every night since they’d moved in Njord had woken up at night, too agitated by the howls of the wolves to sleep. Skadi had grown up hearing them constantly, had even had a few wolf cubs as pets once. She’d long ago gotten used to the noise. But Njord, who was accustomed to the sound of waves and swans on the water, just couldn’t adapt to it like Skadi had.

But Skadi knew it ran deeper than that. Njord had admitted that the entirety of Thrymheim felt wrong. There were mountains and towers on all sides, as far as the eye could see. You couldn’t see the horizon. The sea-god felt trapped, like a fish in a fyke net. And all the while there was the cold, so much more biting here than near the shore.

But all Skadi could do was close the curtains, stoke up the fire and hope that holding her could help Njord sleep.

\----

“Okay I can’t take this anymore!”

Skadi abruptly stood up from the table where she and Njord had been eating. She grabbed the bow and quiver standing by the wall and headed for a window. With lightning quick speed she started shooting.

“Can’t you just be quiet!”

Every word was punctuated by the twang of the bow as she launched arrows into the horde of gulls flying outside, barely any of them missing their mark. Several of the gulls fell down into the sea below. Angry or not, Skadi did not have shoddy aim. 

She felt two soft arms wrap from behind her, squeezing her.

“Dear, please calm down. You’ll waste your arrows.”

Skadi sighed and sat down, smiling apologetically at Njord.

“I’m sorry. It’s just… Their constant squawks are so irritating! They never shut up! It’s like they’re competing for who can aggravate me the most!”

But of course, that wasn’t all of it. The gulls were just the most immediate irritant. Skadi simply did not feel at home in Noatun at all.

She’d been born in the mountains. In some ways she was made of the mountains. She had always had borders on her horizon, Jagged peaks and towers to make her feel secure.  
Here, whenever she looked out of the window it was just flat as far as the eye could see. The plains stretching inland on one side and on the other the vast, bottomless expanse of the sea. 

Looking into Njord’s eyes had convinced her that she could love the sea, but she had been sorely mistaken. 

And then there was the wind. She had been used to the biting mountain air, swirling around the crags. The sea air was different. Not biting and swift but heavy, carrying the pungent smell of salt wherever it went. It felt distinctly wrong. 

Njord smiled at her in understanding but Skadi could see the pain in her gaze, the same pain she felt at her wife’s discomfort with Thrymheim. Still, the goddess just hummed and looked out of the window.

“Maybe if you shoot some of them down above land, the carcasses can keep your wolves quiet?”

Skadi couldn’t help but laugh in spite of it all.

\-----

So it went on, nine days in the mountains and nine days at sea, over and over again. Neither of them truly got used to the other’s home and it had started to put strain on their relationship. Sleepless nights and irritating noises made them short with one another, causing arguments about petty things. Skadi knew her temper, and she knew it was only a matter of time before she’d say something she would regret. She also knew that Njord would not back down if she did and it would only spiral from there.

But Skadi didn’t want to just give up and let it happen. That was precisely what she liked about Njord: she could handle Skadi. In hindsight it was something none of the other gods could have done, certainly not Balder. Njord never took any of Skadi’s nonsense. But her opposition was always cloaked in a dry humour and a soft care that the giantess couldn’t help but appreciate. 

She wanted a solution, not a separation. So she asked for help throughout the nine realms.

The dwarves offered to build her an underground castle, near one of the many endless lakes under the earth’s crust. That way Njord would have water and she would have stone. But they both loved the open air and starlight too much for that. Besides, the dwarves often had prices that were far too steep for Skadi’s liking. 

Some of her giant friends offered to help by levelling some mountains. They’d carry enough water there to fill the hole that was left and create a sea. But that would be too artificial. Skadi knew it would never feel quite right for Njord. 

The solution of the elves had the same issue. They offered to enchant a palace for them in such a way that it would seem like the sea to Njord and like the mountains to Skadi. But elvish illusions, no matter how skilfully woven, always felt false in the end. 

In the end it was Freyr who came up with the solution while he was travelling through Midgard. At the north of the world he’d found a place where snowy mountains reached directly into the sea. It was perfect. After Njord had thanked her son profusely she and Skadi set to work on a new hall there. One end was Skadi’s, where she could look upon the mountains and hear the mountain wind wailing. The other was Njord’s, where the windows looked out over the sea and she could smell the salt air. And in the middle, in rooms without windows, they could sleep and eat together, enchanted elvish tapestries serving as inoffensive replications of their favoured environments. 

It did not solve all the issues of course. Njord could still faintly hear the howling of wolves at night and Skadi still shot adventurous seagulls that dared to fly inland. But it was a place they could both feel at home in. That was enough. 

It is said that they still live at the north of the world, far away from the squabbles of gods and men, with only the mountains and the sea to keep them company. And when Ragnarok comes, they may very well sit out the storm there and survive to bless the new world.


End file.
